The main questions that I have are-
-does everything have to happen in between multiple stars? When you want to go slightly closer to what OA considers plausible- which of course may not actually be what happens- I prefer to make as much as possible happen within a single solar system- especially one with lots of moons or artificial habitats. It's good to ask- Do you really need a large number of entire habitable planets...or do you really just need a large number of diverse locations? I know most space opera is more of a "thousand worlds or go home" kind of genera, but even our solar system is gigantic- most of the stories from all of history have happened on only our one planet, so sometimes it might be better to reframe the question as- how much time do the characters need to spend traveling through space and what kind of locations do they really need to go to? does this really need to be accomplished with wormholes?
Could they travel between moons of a gas giant, if you only need 8 or so locations?
I ask this in particular if your story is set within the next thousand years.
-does everything have to happen in between multiple stars? When you want to go slightly closer to what OA considers plausible- which of course may not actually be what happens- I prefer to make as much as possible happen within a single solar system- especially one with lots of moons or artificial habitats. It's good to ask- Do you really need a large number of entire habitable planets...or do you really just need a large number of diverse locations? I know most space opera is more of a "thousand worlds or go home" kind of genera, but even our solar system is gigantic- most of the stories from all of history have happened on only our one planet, so sometimes it might be better to reframe the question as- how much time do the characters need to spend traveling through space and what kind of locations do they really need to go to? does this really need to be accomplished with wormholes?
Could they travel between moons of a gas giant, if you only need 8 or so locations?
I ask this in particular if your story is set within the next thousand years.
![[Image: Gaylien1.png]](https://www.orionsarm.com/im_store/Gaylien1.png)